Is this a car or a sports utility vehicle?

A kerb weight of over two tonnes (2170kg to be precise). Add to that a payload of 700kg and there is the mammoth bulk of nearly three tonnes that has to be moved and that too on the roughest of terrains. On tarmac, this bulk has to be kept moving at the pace of the other traffic. So the big question in our minds was whether the M-class would be able to do it? Specially, because in India it is powered by the 3.2-litre engine which is the lowest spec petrol version featuring a V6 engine while others feature V8 engines.

So we were off to the bumpy quadrilateral of VRDE, not very confident of what times the ML320 would do. But we were in for quite a surprise: 60kmph came up in just over 5 seconds and the ML320 touched 100kmph in 12 seconds, impressive for such a bulky vehicle. The car (with such impressive figures, it would only be fair to call it a such) reaches 150kmph in just under 31 seconds and the kilometre mark is reached in under 34 seconds at a speed of 154kmph. Top speed at VRDE was restricted to 175kmph because of the bumpy bankings. That too was achieved with all its electronic traction control and stability programmes working away furiously to keep us on level ground with our heads pointing in the right direction. On open stretches of roads, the speedo needle does cross the 200kmph mark. The maximum we have seen on the speedo is 205kmph which translates to about 195kmph true speed given the speedo error we encountered on this vehicle.

But what was even more impressive than the top speed and acceleration figures were the roll-ons - the car accelerating furiously in each and every gear!